Explain the role that the idea of an enduring self plays in legal, moral, and religious contexts.
             Descartes view held that the soul is an identity that remains constant, a continuity of thought, the thinking mind representing self. Locke believed that we had identity based on memories. The no-self view is shared by the Scottish philosopher David Hume, and Budhism, who believe that we have no fixed nature, and because everything's in flux, there could be no such thing as an enduring self. Socrates raises the central philosophical problem regarding the actual existence of an enduring self. He asks what is it that remains unchanged or endures thru a lifetime of changes in both our body and soul? Modern philosophers and neurologists like Patricia Churchland, seek to provide evidence of the self being an integration of a variety of components giving the illusion of a unity that goes on thru time.
             In philosophy it does no harm to debate the role of an enduring self, but in the real world of legal, moral, and religious institutions, the concept of an enduring self is essential at the most elementary levels;
             Legal – How could we be held responsible for crimes, if we were not the same person? Who stands before the judge for sentencing but the same person who committed the crime days, weeks or months before?
             Moral – Could we be held responsible for promises made at the age of twenty, when we are forty? If you borrow money, can you argue that you are not the same person when it is time to pay it back?
             Religious – Who is punished with eternal damnation, rewarded with heavenly salvation, or reincarnated to work out karma, if not for some eternal self?
             It is plain to see that each of the above examples of belief systems tend to support the view of an enduring self. Philosophers call it "the problem of personal identity." The question is, what makes a person the same person from one moment to the next, and if we are no...